Advise; 2008 Mac Pro or Sandy Hackintosh

[loungecorps]

get an xserve they are selling for cheap now used

 

[bthomas2]

Why bother with 8 cores

Unless the computer is going to be a Database server or online Web Server anything over 4 core is a waste. If he is doing design work (I assume photoshop) even 4 cores is overkill. My i7 Mac Book Pro with 2 cores and hyper threading is just as fast or Faster than a friends quad Mac Pro faster actually. Writing apps to effectively use more than a couple of Cores is not a trivial task. A Quad core with lots of Ram is much better from a price performance perspective, now if it's a database server or web server where you are spawning lots of threads then the 8 core boxes are worth the premium, or if you are running multiple virtual machines. Having more than 4 cores on a desktop workstation is great for bragging rites but not much more!

BT
Just my two cents, often only worth a Penny!

 

[chrismacguy]

Unless the computer is going to be a Database server or online Web Server anything over 4 core is a waste. If he is doing design work (I assume photoshop) even 4 cores is overkill. My i7 Mac Book Pro with 2 cores and hyper threading is just as fast or Faster than a friends quad Mac Pro faster actually. Writing apps to effectively use more than a couple of Cores is not a trivial task. A Quad core with lots of Ram is much better from a price performance perspective, now if it's a database server or web server where you are spawning lots of threads then the 8 core boxes are worth the premium, or if you are running multiple virtual machines. Having more than 4 cores on a desktop workstation is great for bragging rites but not much more!

BT
Just my two cents, often only worth a Penny!

1) If your using Final Cut Studio, anything below a Quad Core is ridiculously slow, and you need 8+ to make it run.
2) No, but I cant multitask as much on my Core 2 Duo MacBook as I can on my lovely Mac Pro Quad (roughly equivalent to the 8-Core mentioned here in terms of performance due to mine not having a FSB and having the new architecture)
3) 16 year olds do a lot at once, Im sure he could push a Quad to its knees if he really really tried (of that era).
4) You are fundamentally wrong when you say you only need 4 cores on the desktop. If you try to render videos, having 4 threading to 8 is enough, until you go the HD, then even my Mac Pro 5,1 Quad seems slow and I wish I could have 8 - 12 cores to deal with rendering 1.5hrs of HD footage. There are plenty of applications, both within the creative industry (Video Editors, Video Producers, People who do a lot at once - such as myself (Average App Load: Mail, Safari, iTunes, XCode, Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Motion 4, Soundtrack Pro, Dreamweaver, Preview, iChat, Skype, Terminal, Console) - heck it slowed my Mac Pro down enough I bought another Mac just to run iTunes.) and within the Sciences (People who do research for instance) - all of whom cant manage on 2,4 or even 8 cores, however they thread.

 

[goMac]

Unless the computer is going to be a Database server or online Web Server anything over 4 core is a waste. If he is doing design work (I assume photoshop) even 4 cores is overkill. My i7 Mac Book Pro with 2 cores and hyper threading is just as fast or Faster than a friends quad Mac Pro faster actually. Writing apps to effectively use more than a couple of Cores is not a trivial task. A Quad core with lots of Ram is much better from a price performance perspective, now if it's a database server or web server where you are spawning lots of threads then the 8 core boxes are worth the premium, or if you are running multiple virtual machines. Having more than 4 cores on a desktop workstation is great for bragging rites but not much more!

BT
Just my two cents, often only worth a Penny!

Most good pro apps can use 8 or twelve cores. Any code compiling can use 12 cores. If you run more than one app, they'll spread out over the cores. It's actually fairly normal to write an app that uses two or three cores. I would say, quite honestly, it is pretty damn hard to write an app these days that only uses one core.

There are a lot of reasons getting an 8 core is a good idea.

 

[Gman257]

I recently sold My Mac Pro 1,1 here in Canada for $1,800 & put the money towards building a Hackintosh here are some specs:

Intel i7 970
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5
Corsair H70
Corsair Dominator 6GB
ASUS ENGTX 285 Graphics Card
Velociraptor 300GB
2x1Tb WD RE3 Black
2Tb Samsung F4
Corsair 950watt PSU

Put everything together & had everything up & running fully functional within 2-3 days.
This HACKINTOSH is ridiculously FAST
Geekbench stock:14,000

 

[cburton]

Wife is looking to upgrade her long in the tooth 1st gen. She does mainly professional Adobe CS work for graphics and web design. What would be the best upgrade for the money:

1. MacPro 4,1 (2009) 2.66 Quad from B&H for $1799.
2. MacPro 4,1 (2009) 2.26 8 Core refurb from Apple Store for $2699.
3. MacPro 2008 2.8 8 Core from .....
4. Wait for Sandy MacPro ...
4. Hackintosh for $1200.

I don't find the price point of any of the 2010 systems enticing at all. I really don't like the idea of buying a 3 year old computer as an upgrade either. So, should we hang in there and wait for Sandy Bridge MPs or Hackintosh it until they come out and have some street time to prove their worth?

Chris

 

[Mackilroy]

P55/H55 and X58 hackintoshes have been around for a long time, and are well proven. SNB hackintoshes will not be solid machines until Apple begins using Sandy Bridge and we no longer need a modified kernel.

If you wait for the next Mac Pro it'll be some time, Xeon Sandy Bridge systems won't be out for months.